


Towards the Stars

by DavesfriendBill



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Flowey - Freeform, Gen, I'll add more tags later, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6279004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavesfriendBill/pseuds/DavesfriendBill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asriel Dreemurr is alone in the Underground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Determination is most potent in humans and their souls, this determination allows their bodies to remain intact after death and in several cases, return from death. Monsters have determination as well, though not nearly as potent and as such, after death, their bodies disintegrate into a fine powder. There have been no documented resurrection of monsters through determination. Monsters can absorb human souls and become an unstoppable force. Humans can absorb monster souls, but the effects are weaker as monster souls are weaker. There has only been one documented case of a monster absorbing a human soul neither lived, though death did not seem to be caused by the absorption.

Humans used their power of determination during The War to its full extent. One would fall, but it would almost always come back to avenge itself, there was no conceivable way for monsters to win. Using the determination in their souls, seven of the strongest human mages sealed monsters into the Underground. The Barrier was put in place and monsters were truly trapped in the Underground. The Barrier was easy to cross going from the Surface to the Underground, however it was almost impossible to leave the Underground. Seven human souls and a strong monster soul would have the power to destroy the Barrier, but only one human and monster soul would be needed to cross to the Surface.

The War had devastating effects on the monsters. The population was was only a third of what it had been and many were permanently injured. However, our king, King Asgore and his wife, Queen Toriel were a strong pillars of hope in the dark times following. Their son, Prince Asriel, was born in the first few months after our loss and he brought warm joy into the otherwise cold Underground. King Asgore and Queen Toriel are classified as Boss Monsters which after reaching adulthood, age with their offspring. If the offspring perish, Boss Monsters stop aging and seem unable to die of old age. 

As Asriel grew, everyone in the Underground watched and smiled at his first steps and the first time he tried peas. During this time, the royal scientist, W.D. Gatser began researching determination and the Barrier. There were no big breaks and it was slow going. The town of Snowdin was finished and many monsters moved in. Permanently injured monsters had places to stay and others to take care of them. Children were being born and the edge of the war faded, life in the Underground seemed to be looking up.

Boss Monsters age very slowly, about half the monsters who fought in the war had fallen down and the other half had aged considerably by the time Asriel’s toddler years were over. Asriel was seven (in human years) when the Hotland was finished. The Hotland was certainly a sight to behold, a huge metallic city positioned over magma pools, roads made of fallen stones were the only way in and out of the city. W.D. Gaster and his team of scientists were the grinning faces behind the success of the Hotlands. The monster population, though not nearly the size it had been, was growing. The War had started to fade from monsters’ minds and into history books.

Then a human fell into the Underground. They were a child named Chara, around Asriel’s age (in human years). Asriel found them, injured in a bed of flowers under the only opening from the Surface to the Underground. The prince brought them back to the queen and king who after some debate, accepted the child. After a few years, the human child became like a second child to the queen and the king. Asriel and the child were like siblings and the Underground accepted this development happily. There were several objections, mostly from old veterans of the War, but they were drowned out. Life in the Underground could not be better.

The child got sick. The Queen and King brought in doctors and scientists from all corners of the Underground, they couldn’t do anything. Asriel sat by their bedside all day and all night, listening and mumbling to them. The child told Asriel that all they wanted was to see the yellow flowers in their home village. The child died that night. Blinded by grief, Asriel absorbed the child’s soul and broke through The Barrier, carrying the child’s body. He stormed into the middle of the child’s village and laid them on a bed of golden flowers. 

Screams and yells rang out around Asriel. The village people only saw a massive monster hold the dead body of one of their missing children. The villagers attacked him, stabbing and shooting arrows at him, but Asriel did not retaliate even with the child’s soul begging him to do something or he would die. Asriel simply picked the child’s body up and left, smiling. 

Asriel returned to the Underground, falling to his knees upon the flowerbeds outside the castle. He screamed for his parents who came running, tearing through the halls in search of their child. They found Chara’s body and a layer of dust on the flowers. 

The King and Queen had lost two children that day. Life in the Underground took a turn for the worse. With the death of both his children, King Asgore declared war on humans and that any human that was found in the Underground would be killed. Queen Toriel, disgusted by his actions, left the castle and fled somewhere past Snowdin. The Underground seemed colder, but the king’s words brought hope and gave many a new goal to strive for. 

Many years later, the royal scientist, Doctor Alphys, began the Determination Experiments. These experiments focused on extracting the determination from the six human souls that had been collected by Asgore and transferring it to another vessel. In theory, these determined monster souls could break the Barrier. The experiments were all failures in the end, creating horrible amalgamations. In frustration, Doctor Alphys took a yellow flower from the flowerbeds outside of the castle. She injected the flower with determination over and over, trying to make something work. The flower did not react to any of the injections. In the end, she returned it to the flowerbeds and began working with the amalgamations.

A few weeks later, the flower woke up. The determination had given the flower a will to live. The flower began screaming for its mother, father, anyone to help it. The flower cried about how it couldn’t feel its arms or legs. But nobody came.

Two days later when King Asgore went to go water the flowers, he came upon a sight he had never expected to see, a flower crying. He asked the flower if it was okay when the flower looked up and began screaming “Dad! It’s me dad, it’s me! Help me!” King Asgore rushed to the flower, no, his son’s side and began comforting him. The king stayed by Asriel’s side a majority of the time for the next couple of months, reading him stories and talking to him. But Asriel found something very alarming, he couldn’t return any of his father’s love or joy. Whenever his father smiled at him, he couldn’t feel anything. Asriel tried getting angry, thinking about his sibling’s death, nothing. 

Asriel asked his father where his mother was because if anyone could fix this, it was his mom. His father told him she was on vacation and when Asriel tried pressing, he completely clammed up. The next week, Asriel left and began the search for his mother. He burrowed through the metal of the Hotlands and accidentally broke through the floorboards of a Snowdin home, there was no sign of his mother anywhere. 

Several weeks into the search he found a door to what he had been told were The Ruins. Asriel knocked on the door and waited and waited and waited. The door opened and there, in the doorway, was the former Queen Toriel. He cried out to her and she accepted him without question. She baked him butterscotch-cinnamon pie and her famous snail pie every night, she sang to him, and set his room back up. The house was laid out almost exactly the same as their old home, but there was another room that was locked and under renovations. He snuck in the room late one night and found the room, a bedroom, fully intact. There pictures of his mother and children that weren’t him and Chara, there were drawings neither him nor his sibling had drawn. They were six different humans, the king had six human souls. Asriel didn’t talk to his mother for months because how could she? She replaced us with not one, but six children! 

Asriel found a problem his mother couldn’t fix. He told her about his problem and how he couldn’t feel anything. She cried and hugged him, Asriel felt nothing. Years passed and nothing had changed. Toriel tried to help in anyway she could, but her son just kept drifting farther from her. She woke up one morning and walked to his room to wake him up, the room was empty. The flowerpot she had put him in was on the ground with dirt spilling out of it and there was a hole in the floorboards. 

Asriel desperately searched through the Underground for someone or something that could make him feel. He helped everyone in the Underground, no problem was too small for him to fix. He found two skeleton brothers, the shorter one looked very familiar, but he liked the taller one better. The taller one, Papyrus was kind and when Asriel was adventuring with him, he felt something like happiness. It wore off within months and Asriel was empty once more. He continued his search, feeling sparks of emotion that soon died. On one of his trips to the Hotlands he popped up in a crumbling rock that started falling into the lava. Asriel panicked and tried to send out vines to save himself, but he was too late. Asriel fell into the lava and was almost instantly disintegrated. 

But it refused.

Asriel woke up in the flowerbeds of the castle. His father walked in, he didn’t recognize Asriel. Asriel yelled for his dad, it was like the past years hadn’t happened at all. Asriel threw himself into the lava again and woke up in the flowerbeds. This time, Asriel didn’t speak to his father and went straight to Papyrus. Papyrus didn’t remember anything, but his shorter brother, Sans seemed to recognize him. 

Asriel redid everything, changing his actions and found he could reset at will. He didn’t visit his parents anymore and had begun calling himself Flowey, Flowey the Flower. He won every game and lost every game, saved everyone and killed everyone, did everything the Underground had to offer, thrice. He got bored, doing the same things over and over. He knew every reaction that he could possibly get from anybody in the Underground, the monsters didn’t feel like real, living beings anymore. Flowey stopped resetting and watched the Underground move forwards.

Then a human fell into the Underground, it was Chara, it had to be. It wasn’t. Flowey attacked them with ‘friendliness pellets’, Toriel saved the child. He decided to reset, maybe he’d try a different approach, but he couldn’t. So, he followed the human on their journey through the Underground and watched them meet monsters and make friends. The human went through the Underground on a completely pacifist run, they didn’t hurt any monster at any time. 

The human made it to the King, but Toriel save them at the last second. All of the friends the human had made during their journey showed up to support them and then Flowey showed up. Flowey absorbed all of their souls and the six human souls, he returned to his original form, he was Asriel once more. He felt full and he could feel emotions again, it hurt. There were thousands of different souls in him all feeling strong emotions, it was an overload. 

Asriel transferred that energy into making a new form for himself and became the Hyper God of Death, a legendary being made of all the souls in the Underground. He fought Chara and Chara survived every attack, they listened and tried to save him. They got through to him and he reverted back to his original form. Asriel finally accepted that the human in front of him was not Chara, that Chara was gone forever. The human’s name was Frisk. Asriel shattered the Barrier and released all the souls he had absorbed. The energy the souls had left allowed him to have something like a temporary soul and he felt horrible. He was wracked with guilt over all of his actions, Frisk offered to take him to the Surface. Asriel refused. 

Frisk hugged Asriel for a long time, Asriel didn’t want to let go. Frisk walked away and Asriel was left in the flowerbeds under the opening that Chara had fallen through. Asriel sat for a long time, waiting for this temporary soul to shatter and become that creature again. He didn’t want to be a soulless flower again. Asriel hoped he would just die this time.

The soul broke several days later. Asriel was ready, still sitting in the flowerbeds. The temporary soul burst and it hurt. Asriel screamed and folded in on himself, clutching  
his chest. 

But it refused.

There was a bright flash of light, the soul was still there. The soul was cracked in several places, missing almost a fourth of itself, but it was still there. Asriel stared blankly, he wasn’t a flower and he had a soul. He wanted to feel happy, but he only felt scared and alone. He couldn’t go to the Surface, he didn’t deserve it and what if it broke while he was up there? He couldn’t put everyone in danger like that again. 

Asriel stayed in the Underground. He lived in the Ruins where his mother had lived on her own for so long. Life in the Underground, alone, was not a good life. In fits of anger, he tore up the room under renovations, the room that had housed all six of his and Chara’s replacements. Though the room was mostly empty, the bed, some furniture, some drawings, and a couple pictures remained. He destroyed it all, crushed the bed with his ‘friendliness pellets’ and using the little fire magic his mother had taught him, burned the pictures. 

Asriel slept in his old room, but with sleep came nightmares and he always migrated to his mother’s old room. The kitchen held some food, old cans of dried fruit stacked in the cabinets and a butterscotch cinnamon pie in the fridge. When the nightmares got very bad or when he felt very lost, he took a bite of the pie. It helped, but the pie wouldn’t last forever nor would the cans. Asriel didn’t want to starve or resort to the flowers for food, he remembered clearly how the flowers affected monsters and humans. 

He would sometimes venture outside of the Ruins, but he would never go farther than a few yards from the door. Asriel spent most of his time sitting on the bed of flowers that his sibling had fallen down all those years ago. He had found many empty books on his mother’s bookshelves and few that had a couple pages written in. The writing’s were all made by children, he didn’t recognize the handwriting. Asriel ripped the pages out and burned them. 

With the pens he had found, he began writing down everything. He started with just writing thoughts that popped into his head, about the cave walls and how nice it would be to find some paint. Asriel began to realize that he couldn’t remember things as easily, names and reset numbers that used to come some easily to him, became foreign to him. Some days he couldn’t remember if the resets were real or just in his imagination. He finally put his foot down when one morning, he couldn’t remember what Chara looked like. He grabbed a green book and began writing.

Asriel wrote all afternoon and late into the night, skipping lunch and dinner. He started with his earliest memory and went from there. When he went to the flowerbed under the entrance to the Underground he brought the green book and a blue one as well. In the blue one, he wrote apologies over and over, whole pages just to one monster. He stayed under the hole almost all day, everyday because what if another human fall in? Asriel would help the human, guide the human through the Underground and get them out safely. The thought of a human falling scared and excited him, he wanted someone else down here with him, at least for a day or so. But what if his soul broke while the human was down here and he attacked it? 

Asriel went about his routine every single day, steadily getting more nervous as his food supplies got smaller and smaller. He woke up one morning and went to grab himself a can of dried peaches for breakfast, it was the last in the cabinet, but it was okay because there were several more cabinets. He walked to the hole and sat, no guests today. Asriel opened the next cabinet to find dinner, it was empty. His stomach fluttered in panic as he opened the cabinet next to it, empty. The feeling of panic grew stronger as he opened every cabinet only to find them all empty. Asriel started to cry, there had to be some mistake, all the cabinets should’ve been full of cans.

Asriel wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, laughing to himself. Chara was right, he was and always would be a crybaby. He went sleep that night, hungry and the nightmares hit hard. Asriel woke up in his mother’s bed, screaming, he grabbed his mother’s pillow and hugged it. Burying his face in the pillow, he sobbed, he should’ve taken Frisk’s offer, he should’ve gone to the Surface. It didn’t matter that his soul could break at any time, anything was better than this isolation. 

When he calmed, Asriel went to the kitchen before turning around, patting his grumbling stomach. He needed to search for food, the flowers were only going to be a last resort. Asriel grabbed a torn up bag his mother had left behind and loaded it with books, pens, a couple of yellow flowers, and a water bottle. He zipped the bag up and slipped the straps over his shoulders before grabbing the keys and heading to the basement. After moving through the basement, he was at the door separating the Ruins and the rest of the Underground. Asriel slipped through the door, locking it behind him and began his search for food.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asriel makes a decision.

Asriel made it to Snowdin by nightfall, snow had been falling hard for the past hour and all he wanted was to eat and sleep. He had break the lock on the shop door with bullets and began looking for any food. There was a single cinnamon bun sitting in the fridge, it looked quite old. Asriel searched for cans or anything that might be in better shape, but could not find anything in the cabinets. Grabbing the cinnamon bun, he began looking through the other rooms, he found a bag of chips and some furniture under sheets. Putting the bag of chips in his bag, he took a bite of the cinnamon bun and he swore it tasted better than snail pie, but that could just be the hunger talking.

Going back outside, he continued onward into the snow. Asriel stopped in front of Sans and Papyrus’ old house, he tried the door. It was locked. Asriel shrugged and melted the lock, opening the door and stepping into the almost empty house. There was only an old, ratty couch in the middle of the room. There was no food in the kitchen, both of the bedrooms were completely empty. As Asriel sat on the couch, pulling the sheet around him like a blanket, he took another bite of the cinnamon bun. After finishing the cinnamon bun, he fell into a restless sleep. 

Asriel woke up screaming. Clutching his chest with one hand, he wiped the tears with his other, trying to get his breathing under control. He took great gulps of air, reaching blindly for his mother’s pillow when he remembered that he wasn’t at home. Shuddering, he wrapped his arms around himself and stayed perfectly still. It didn’t take that long for Asriel to calm down, he opened the bag of chips and ate one. 

Getting up, he grabbed his bag and went back out into the snow. Asriel was hoping to get to the Hotlands by the end of today. He hoped they still had Glamburgers, or at least some of the vending machines were there and still worked. Maybe he could try that gardening shop that was on the outskirts of the palace, they would probably have some leftover seeds that he could use to grow food. If there were no seeds, he’d have to depend on the remaining food in the Underground which wouldn’t last forever. Asriel didn’t want to go to the Surface, but he also didn’t want to starve and he really didn’t want to eat the flowers.

Asriel continued on, passing through the echo flowers, the puzzles, waterfalls, and Undyne’s former house. He stopped, breathing hard and took a swig from the water bottle he’d taken from the bag. Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he began moving closer the Core and closer to food. Asriel had made it to the Hotlands and he was certainly feeling it, the lava bubbled and some rocks crumbled, a shudder ran up his spine.   
Asriel shrieked, throwing himself backward, vines broke through the surface and wrapped themselves around him. Chest heaving, he lowered himself to the ground, staring at the empty spot he had been standing in a couple seconds ago. Where solid rock had been was now a one way ticket to burning death. Asriel stared at hole as he walked around it still breathing hard, he sent the vines back into the ground. He had been so close to dying and this time, he couldn’t reset, there would be no coming back from that. Was that really a bad thing though? Asriel shook his head, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind and focused on getting to the metallic city. 

Hours later and several more close calls with the lava, a very frazzled and chipless Asriel stood in front of Dr. Alphys former lab. Knocking on the large doors, he waited and waited until he remembered that nobody would answer. He carefully opened the door and began looking around the abandoned lab. The lab was a complete mess, papers littered the ground, some furniture was covered with sheets, but also lying on their sides and in odd places. Asriel stared at the large, dusty screen in front of him and the large control panel under it. This was where Dr. Alphys had watched Frisk’s journey through the surveillance cameras. Pressing a large, green button, Asriel was surprised to see the screen light up. The screen was a blank white though and no matter what button he pressed, the screen did not change.

Eventually, Asriel’s stomach overcame his curiosity and he began searching for food. He searched high and low, but to no avail. Asriel even looked in the True Lab, the vending machines were gone and there was not crumb anywhere. Blinking quickly, he tried to think of some positives in his situation. The MTT Hotel may have some Glamburgers, the seed shop may have seeds and the palace may have something.

Asriel marched through the Core, the MTT Hotel had nothing. The MTT Hotel was completely empty, the fountain was even gone. Taking the elevator, he knew he was on his final stretch. If the seed shop was seedless, then there went his sustainable food source. 

As he searched the buildings along the road leading to the palace, he found that the seed shop was not among them. Asriel fell to his knees in front of the palace and started crying, hard. He tried to stop, scrubbing his eyes with the back of his hands, but he couldn’t. Now that he thought of it, the last time he saw the seed shop was when he was alive for the first time. The thought brought back memories of him and Chara running through the city and he cried harder. As the hours passed, he calmed down, but didn’t move from his spot because what was the point now? 

What had ever been the point though? He was in a self-imposed (though deserved) exile waiting for his soul to break and become a soulless wreck once more. And now there was no food and he couldn’t bring himself to eat the flowers. It would be quicker than starving, but he was scared, he remembered how Chara had shoveled the flowers down and how much pain they had been in. 

Asriel wanted to go to the Surface. He wanted to go so badly it hurt, but he couldn’t. After all he had done? After all the trouble and pain he had put everyone through? He could never show his face to them ever again. And what would his parents think? Seeing their son that had been dead for so long, they didn’t remember all the resets, didn’t remember all the years he’d spent with them and how many times he’d killed them. He couldn’t act like he had before his death and what if they found he was Flowey? No, Asriel could not go to the Surface.

Asriel wanted his mom. He wanted his family back so badly. He wanted to take those boring math lessons with Chara, have tea parties with his dad, and bedtime stories with his mom. Asriel wanted to see Frisk, Frisk always seemed to have a plan. Frisk always knew what to do and rarely faltered. Frisk would know what to do. Asriel had it, it was so simple. What would Frisk do? He thought for a minute, Frisk would go to their friends, Frisk would go to the Surface and apologize.

Asriel sighed, he should go to the Surface. He didn’t even have to see Frisk and the others, he could just bypass them and go straight to wherever he was going. Picking himself up, he brushed off some dirt and suddenly froze. The dirt floated down like dust, and landed on a pile of dirt that looked a lot like a pile of white dust. Asriel took a step backward and then another and another until he had turned around and was sprinting past abandoned buildings. 

He stopped, breathing hard at the doors of the elevator that he had taken up here. Staring at his reflection, he started crying again. Shaking, he leaned against the doors and slid down with his back against the elevator. Rubbing his eyes, he shook his head, he was a mess, a complete and utter mess. A grumbling noise filled the otherwise silent Underground. Asriel glared at his stomach as he stood up and began making his way back to the front of the palace where he had left his bag. 

After stumbling and almost falling a couple times, he finally reached his bag and when he looked at the dirt, all he saw was dirt. Opening the bag, he grabbed   
a bottle of water and took a sip. Asriel picked up a yellow flower and stared at it for a while before placing it back in the bag, he wasn’t that desperate yet. Pulling the straps of the bag over his shoulders, he stepped through the doorway and into a courtyard filled with flowers, a majority of them being yellow. Asriel looked around at the flowers, ignoring the two thrones covered by sheets in the corner. As he crossed to the other side of the room, he took care to stomp of the flowers especially the ones of the yellow variety.

As he stepped into the long room nicknamed Judgement Hall, he shivered. Asriel remembered all the times he went through here, many of them ending in a chat with a friend, but so many more ended in a fight to the death. He squared his shoulders and marched through the room into the hallway. Where Judgement Hall was golden with windows and curtains, colour everywhere, this hall’s walls were stone gray, some torches that had gone out months, maybe years ago hung adorned the walls alone. 

Asriel glanced at the stairs going down into a now empty room before turning towards the large, dark doorway. He stepped through and stared. The Barrier was gone and now it was just a spiral staircase going up and up. Asriel took the first step up the stairs and stopped. Did he really want to do this? Yes, of course he did. Did he deserve it? Asriel glanced up, no, he really didn’t deserve it. He glanced at the doorway that led back into the Underground, Frisk had said that they wanted him to live on the Surface with them. Asriel nodded to himself and began climbing the stairs, he was doing this for Frisk, Frisk had wanted him there and he would be there. Asriel didn’t want to think about what would happen if Frisk didn’t want him anymore.


End file.
